Breakfast · Kunming Grill

Shao Erkuai (烧饵块, Grilled Rice Cake)

Photo: 瑞丽江的河水 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Locals eat it almost every morning, making it as central to a Kunming breakfast as coffee and toast are elsewhere.

A flat disc of pounded rice cake is grilled over charcoal until blistered and lightly charred, brushed with a sweet or savory sauce, then wrapped around a stick of fried dough (youtiao) and folded up like a taco. Kunming street vendors sell it hot off the grill as a grab-and-go breakfast.

Why it's made this way: Made from Yunnan's local rice traditions with roots going back over two millennia, it became the everyday breakfast of choice because it's quick to grill to order and easy to eat on the move.